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Picture this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Don't bother finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, add some goal stats in a large, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. And will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you run online for a large outlet, pure interaction is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred periods to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? We need an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? And do I propose to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in this. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now basically content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is sacrificing something here.